|
 |
 |
|
THE SKUNK
by Abigail Schott-Rosenfeld, age 13
Abigail wrote this piece during 826 Valencia's "Writing and Publishing Apprentices" workshop.
The radiator and the washing machine sound like marbles rolling over bumpy floors, and the windows have little swollen cracks full of black slime; I hate to call it mold because then I would have to deal with it. One of the old-fashioned panes has a hand-shaped series of breaks spreading out from the corner of the frame. Some high school freshman threw a basketball at it. Now it’s covered with old clear tape so crisp that it disintegrates at a touch. The students from the high school down the block like to play sports in the middle of the evening, when everything else is still, and the whole family can hear them breathing and yelling. Once I tried yelling back at them, but they wouldn’t stay away. Someone had spun a doughnut on our big intersection, and the smell of rubber mixed unpleasantly with the clarifying odor of skunk. The boys played inside of the black ring. Every morning when I wake up, I have a headache. I’m too tired and there is a monster under the bed, a skunk. He gets into the garden and eats my zinnias. What kind of a skunk eats flowers? My husband thinks it’s amusing, and calls him a devil in black and white. It’s not funny. I would love to shoot that skunk, but shooting him would be worse than giving up any garden. Where would you put the tomato juice? In the dirt? I can’t leave him alone, either, because we can all smell him, all the time. Even our street lamp is messed up: it keeps flickering on and off.
“Mommy, the street lamp is broken.” Rose keeps sneaking into our bed at night, scared of the jumping light. She told me it was like when the dementors come in Harry Potter. I said it was more like Dumbledore’s deluminator, and went back to sleep with her little mouse head on my thigh. Why can’t the lighting company keep it together? I want to go and complain to someone. I keep imagining conversations where the light company refuses to say that it’s all their fault, and I bring a lawsuit against them and win several thousand dollars. But I’ve been too busy and that’s at the bottom of my list.
The phone begins to ring, and I listen to the “t-jingle” tone for a minute, then get up and answer it.
“Hello? Is this Rose’s mother? This is American gymnastics?”
Instantly I see Rose, dying, puking, with a broken limb. And this was my one free day! Oh god, that’s mean! “Yes? What happened?”
“It’s OK, it’s nothing bad. She just says she feels sick and she wants you to pick her up.” Well, I should probably be glad Rosie’s arm isn’t fractured or something from falling off a trampoline.
“Ok, I’ll come and get her now. Just tell her I’ll be there in five.”
“Ok, bye,” says the teacher, clearly undisturbed.
* * *
The car door is stuck, and I can’t find my keys. What is wrong with my whole life?
Once I get to her class, I find Rose sitting on a blue plastic-coated foam block, looking miserable, but not really sick.
“Are you sure you’re sick, honey?”
She nods. “I feel bad.”
“All right, let’s go home then. Go get your bag and stuff.” As soon as we get to the car she starts crying. “I want to throw up I feel bad. And Janet was mean to me today.” I know what you mean, baby, I feel the same way. She does throw up, but amazingly I catch it just in time with a garbage bag. Wow, I actually remembered to bring another bag since last time she barfed. We are on a little side street covered in squashy, moldy pine needles where no other people are. I’m really glad that she’s stopped whining, and my own headache is fading. It has been dully foggy for days, and now finally the sun is out. This means the end of a delicious train of baked goods, though—whenever my brains starts to feel grey from fog, I bake to get moving again.
Rose goes and lies down in the zinnias; fortunately, the skunk is on a day trip and we’ve all gotten used to the faint lingering odor that stays behind. The sun is warm and pale, white gold. The grass has risen a foot from the recent rain.
Suddenly, I have a most brilliant idea. Can skunks be poisoned? I walk inside, leaving the door open, then open the computer and look up skunk poisoning. Most sites recommend trapping it. I call 1-853-600-SKUNK and wait.
“Hello?” says a crinkly voice over the phone.
“Hello,” I say, “ I have a skunk under my house. He eats my flowers and I want him gone. Can you trap him?”
“That’s our job,” says the nice voice. “ Where are you located?”
I arrange for them to come the next week. My zinnias are now safe and maybe my husband will stop laughing at me, and the smell of skunk will fade away.
<<< Back to the 826 Valencia Chapter Spotlight
Home
|
|
|
